My character’s name will be Delilah Styles. She has blonde hair with brown root, big browns eyes, and she is 5’5in tall.Delilah also has many freckles along with beauty marks around her face. Delilah’s has first experience with public speaking was in 5th grade because she was the salutatorian, also any class presentation that she had to complete, although they were never more than a couple of minutes long. Delilah seems to have a fear when it comes to public speaking because she thinks that she will mess up and embarrass herself.
Usually, Delilah is very active in the classroom, except for those moments when she starts daydreaming, which is a least once every hour. When she snaps out her daydream, she is likely to ask the person next to her for help, especially when something is assigned. She knows that it is a very bad habit she has so she is tries her best to concentrate.
In professional situation, Delilah is known to speak in a low voice and really quickly, which makes the person not understand well thus making her repeat herself. In personal situations, she is known to be loud, like really loud;as in you can hear her from a mile away. To get her point across, Delilah is likely to repeat herself, just using different words, or when she is presenting, she would make a movement that will make her see how important that idea is.
In terms of oral communication, Delilah is best when she’s talking to her friends or someone she feel close to because then she feels comfortable unlike when she is speaking to a large crowd. Her worst is when she has to say something in a group of over 20 because her nerves get to the best of her and she start stuttering.

Raven is a teenage girl who faces different obstacles everyday. She is independent and tries not to rely on anyone. Raven often lurks into the shadows, which represents her comfort zone. Usually, she doesn’t really communicate with others unless it’s with the people she’s close with. She chooses to speak when she feels the need to.

Public speaking hasn’t been successful for Raven since high school. Opportunities were given to her to practice in class, but she couldn’t find a way to start. A day before presentation, she would rehearse the script until she memorized it by heart. When the time comes her hands would fidget, the mind begins to blank out, and suddenly everything begins to wither away. The only thing that would cross her mind is how would the audience judge her. Hundreds of eyes are waiting for her first move, which creates enough pressure to stumble her from the beginning to the end.

In class, Raven tends to be a quiet participant in class. She prefers to listen to others when they have something to say rather than hear myself speak. She feels that other people’s answers or opinions are better than hers all the time. Her mind tells her that it won’t be easy from the start but she will progress eventually.

Raven has trouble presenting general speeches, whether it’s a personal or professional situation. She has some bad habits while demonstrating her speech, such as not projecting her voice at a considerate volume, looking at the floor, and staring at the PowerPoint but not the audience. In group presentations, she is not as nervous because the audience is looking at the other group members instead of just her. She believes that she is at her worst when she presents alone because all eyes are on her. Also, she gets anxious because she’s afraid she’ll mess up or stutter. As long as she practices frequently, in time she will get better.

We all know Winnie the pooh, he’s known for being loud, funny, and optimistic. On the other hand there is Piglet she’s normally nervous, stutters occasionally, and fidgets a lot. She has a big heart, she cares about everyone and has an opinion on everything but keeps it to herself most times because it might be wrong. People tend to believe her voice is kind of weird, so to speak of front of a bunch of people is nerve wrecking. That’s when her pink color really gets embraced. The room out of the no where become 110 degrees Fahrenheit, cheeks feel like they’re melting off her face, words become hazy, and a dry throat sneaks up on her. Talking to her friends is a walk through flowers ( piglet’s favorite) but talking on front of her friends while they stare quietly waiting for her to make a mistake isn’t her favorite thing in the world. Since in most places speaking out loud is kind of required piglet does two things, either get to know the crowd and believe she is a Winnie the pooh OR (the most frequent one) stutter, make a lot of hand gestures, and try to speed through.

But Piglet also believes in numbers and although afraid would take a few risk in order to help everyone.  Piglet is very visual, and when ever she can put that to use, she takes advantage.

Piglet is all over the place but tries o keep together. Well that’s Piglet.

If you saw Mary Jane talking with her best friend, you would think the two girls were the most obnoxious people on the face of the Earth. The best friend would describe Mary Jane as, “always interrupts my sentence, she is basically yelling at me half the time and her stories can go on for hours.” Mary Jane would counter that with, “ I try to give the most detail to my listener, so they can fully grasp what I’m saying and I cant help having a loud voice.” As a student, Mary Jane had the opportunity in her senior year of high school to be part of Virtual Enterprise, and represent her chocolate company as their CEO. Being the CEO meant speaking publically in front of a medium sized crowds when presenting the business plan. Her main bad habit was talking too fast, due to how nervous she would get, prior to the presentation. Constantly her teacher would comment, “slow down, Mary, don’t rush through your part.” Though Mary felt that the faster she would say her part the faster it would end. In class Mary tends to stay quiet, unless she feels comfortable enough to share her thoughts or ideas to the class. Mary doesn’t feel great pressure when presenting in front of a regular sized classroom, but any more than that and the butterflies start to flutter. Mary is at her best, when she has written out and memorized her speech, therefore allowing herself to be more free with the presentation and not constantly stumbling into pauses.

Brown eyes, dark brown hair with pale fair skin, Olivia has been just an ordinary girl externally. Growing up, her mother dressed her up in gleaming pink dresses and she delighted in it very much. She was physically fit to make friends near her neighborhood at her hometown but things weren’t as simple as it seemed. The terrifying fear to speak outside her home tied her down to communicate with her fellow friends and teachers at school. Though she desired to break her silence, her inattentive courage made it difficult for society to approve her. However, she still had extravagant thoughts and dreams; her individual ideas were always alive somewhere in her youthful brain.

After several years, she and her family made a life changing decision to attend a small local church; and after further more years, she volunteered at a youth ministry to presentably publicize weekly announcements in front of hundreds of people. Gradually straying away from her comfort zone, she decided to run as a Vice President of an organization called National Honors Society at her high school. On May 2013 she was eventually elected to proudly be the VP, and from there on, she had to go more in dept to the ends of her fear. Preparing meetings bi-weekly was never an issue; however she found presenting the preparation to the rest of the members unpleasantly to face.

Nevertheless, all those troublesome obstacles shaped her to become not perfect but a better speaker. She now enjoys to have one-on-one conversations with her peers about almost anything; from a personal opinion about a certain topic to a personal struggle at school or work. Her oral communication definitely comes most natural and comfortable when she feels like her audience will connect with her perceptions and understandings in a topic or situation; and this may explain why debating is not much of her favorite thing to do in terms of oral communication. However, to try and get her idea across, she would ask critical questions that invisibly support her opinion, to avoid her audience disagreeing to her thoughts. Furthermore though this ordinary girl falls short when it comes to publicly speaking in front of various people, she is strongly commits to use her previous experiences to share her beliefs in class by not only orally speaking during speeches but by voluntarily participating during class; and furthermore, by striving to improve her oral communication speech by speech.

Owl Jolson or more preferably known as butch, was born with a keen sense of trying to understand how things work and what benefits him is his big owl eyes to observe every little thing, gradually to this nice trait he is unable to generate a big picture at times, but he has a great sense of knowing how to piece all the little observations together to form ideas in his head. He tends to usually wander off in his mind and thoughts often connecting and bridging those ideas together with others. Butch has learned a great sense of skill to which he acquired while trying to fly for the first time, he can turn off his nervousness feeling and any other pessimistic thoughts and ideas and even regrets by just stop thinking all together, he only has a brief amount of time to keep his thoughts off but by then he’s already starting to fly, starting to sing or do any other activity that it’s become a flow and when his ideas start to come back all the nervousness goes away because everything is focused on his train of thought. Butch might not always know what words to say and at times he tends to repeat small basic words as he tries to regain his thought process or find the right words to say, this is a small disadvantage butch faces no matter who he talks to and what the subject it may be. He uses this school in most of his hobbies in which it requires to not be pessimistic and to not think negatively, especially when he has to speak in front of crowds the best tool he has is to not think.

Sara May grew up being a very outgoing and energetic young girl. She always enjoyed dancing and being part of performances. However, she was always shy when it came to public speaking. She didn’t mind dancing  because she never had to speak or say a word to the audience. Before she ever had to speak to an audience, she would get butterflies that would eventually make her feel sick.

When she reached high school, Sara May’s soon found out that she would have to do a lot of public speaking. Every year, at the end of the first semester, she was required to make a PowerPoint presentation and present it to two teachers as they would grade her on it. She was graded on her presentation skills and her work. Every time this part of the school year came near, she became stressed out and nervous. Whenever she presented, her hands would get cold and sweat. She would also forget some of the things she needed to say and she would stutter a lot. Several times, in the middle of her presentation, she would choke up and have an awkward pause.

Besides all of this, Sara May has no trouble participating in class. After all her portfolio presentations in high school, she has become more comfortable talking in class or in front of people. She has also done well at improving while she has made a mistake or forgotten what to say. Before her presentations, she remembers to prepare note cards in which would help her review what she had to say. However, she still gets nervous on some occasions when she knows that she is getting graded. One thing that Sara May wishes she could do better is use a more sophisticated language during her presentations. Another thing that she struggles with is putting her ideas into words. Many times, she has a lot of ideas but when it comes to sharing and explaining them, she becomes stuck. Overall,  she has developed a lot on public speaking and communicating. With Sara May’s energetic personality, she finds a way to make herself relaxed and prepared for any speaking that that has to do.

By: Mariluz Rosa

It was a dark day in the city of AP English and the evil Doctor Conn made all of her civilians preform a single speech. If it didn’t meet the standards of the evil doctrine that she called a rubric. Poor Sir Sweaty Palms, he wasn’t quite comfortable giving a speech due to his lack of experience. Though, did not really fear the actions but the suspense he felt every minute that passed until it was his turn, drained his super power of bravery. As each of his fellow comrades delivered their speech with great eloquence a sense of insecurity came to his mind. Was his speech good enough to compete with those of others? He grabbed his paper and gave it one final read and then it was his turn.

With all his might he conjured all his strength got up and confidently walked up on stage. Like his name, his palms grew sweaty; thus meaning his confidence levels were weakening as each pore in his hand began to get damp. He knew he had to act fast before his kryptonite, nerves, got to him. He cleared his throat and the words started to flow. His benchmark was five minutes and Sir Sweaty Palms made sure to pause after every sentence read and speak clearly before the evil Doctor Conn. He accommodated a lot of hand gestures and eye contact like he does when speaking before his friends.

His words were invigorating and as much Doctor Conn tried to resort to her doctrine to give malevolent remarks, she didn’t find anything major to criticize him on. After the five minutes were over a huge roar of applause spread throughout the city of AP English and so comforting Sir Sweaty Palms. He stepped of the stage and thought about how easy that experience was. Prior to that day he had never really had to face a crowd of people when acting out plays, playing sports or group presentations. So thus ends the story of Sir Sweat Palms first time giving a speech.

By: Brian Ronquillo

King Platano was birthed on November 17 of the year 1996, and since his birth he has been a very special individual. KP, as many call him being short for King Platano, has the ability to come up with ideas on the spot of a situation. He has the ability to react quickly, KP has extra quick reflexes; both mentally and physically.  Something he has used to help him from getting in trouble, be it at his workplace, school, or be it in the streets. KP also uses his ability to quickly come up with thoughts when he loses his train of thoughts.

Although he has this ability, he uses it most while delivering speeches or presentations. Not always being a good student, King Platano has had to look for different alternatives to succeed in school. Throughout the beginning of his public school years, King Platano had stage freight, something that would affect him a lot. KP would always forget what he was supposed to say, or how to do certain things. Until he finally came to the realization of his ability during the fifth grade. Since then he has been on the top of his game, KP has been able to make the right choices in fight or flight situations. Has been able to say the right thing at the right time, earning him points with people around him. And it has also improved his skills in sports, making him a better basketball and football player. All of these things added up to improving KP’s life.

Before the fifth grade King’s presentations would be horrible, they would always be unclear due to the fact that he stuttered a lot and would get very nervous. Now KP is a better person at giving speeches. His speeches are now more clear and interesting, they are also more outgoing instead of awkward. Nowadays for KP giving a presentation or speech is not a unwanted task, it is just one more thing to do. King enjoys giving presentations, because he knows that he will always have something to say, something right about the subject. Due to this confident boost KP is now also a better student at participating in class, and often raises his hand when being asked to answer some sort of question. If the answer is wrong, KP doesn’t feel embarrassed, instead he looks out for the correct answer.

King Platano is a better communicator than he has ever been, better at doing so to his friends rather than on a professional basis. But he still has a lot to improve on, something that he will get out of his Com 1010 class, in the fall of 2014. A class that he is guaranteeing an A as a grade in. Doing so while also giving away laughs to his audience at certain points.

Tim is an average guy with no outstanding facts about himself. He likes to be surrounded by people he trusts and has been friends with for a long time. When he comes into a group of people he hasn’t met yet, he tends to be shy and doesn’t talk much. He’s usually the guy that sits in the corner of the room by himself. He really wants to talk to his hopefully future friends, but doesn’t have the ability to do so.

In class, he usually talks to the same 2-3 people around him. He hates that he does that. If he knows he has to present in front of the class, he has to practice several times prior to the presentation. If he doesn’t, he knows he will choke up and be unable to speak at all. He will become red with humiliation. After his failed presentation, he will feel bad for the rest of the day and just feel melancholic and basically hate everything that comes in his way. When he has practiced repeatedly before, he feels much more confident. He feels better abut himself when he finished his presentation.

Like I have stated before, Tim like to talk to the same 2-3 people, and suddenly becomes afraid if there is a new “member” of the group. He doesn’t know how to reply to a simple question that was asked to him. As he grows older, and gets involved in more opportunities to change his life, Tim wants to change his habits of being shy and wants become more outspoken.

By: Emre Irmakcan